Skip Schiel Documents American Indians` Activism

October 09, 1992|By Larry Thall.

Nowadays most upscale bookstores feature impressively well-stocked

``Native Americans`` sections. The scores of titles, though, fall mainly into two groups: first, those dealing with various aspects of Indian history; and second, those appealing to what author Jerry Mander has called ``the current New Age Indian revival``-books covering Indian spiritualism, myths, herbal remedies, the translated wisdom of chiefs and medicine men, etc. Relatively few volumes are devoted to the social, health, economic and political issues facing the approximately 1.5 million American Indians living today in the United States.

``That observation has been a prime motivation for me,`` says photographer and audiovisual producer Skip Schiel, 51, who has been documenting various American Indian activist events since 1983. ``Native people are either depicted in a historical setting-it could be they are all shot up, like at Wounded Knee-or they are shown as great people who are no longer around anymore, like in `Dances with Wolves.` ``

Sixty of Schiel`s black-and-white photographs are on view in the Chicago Cultural Center, in the exhibition ``Mitakuye Oyasin (All My Relations):

Photographs by Skip Schiel.`` They primarily include images from events held in South Dakota, Nevada and Massachusetts.

``What I`m trying to do,`` says the photographer, ``is look at native people fairly and fully as human beings ... people who have lessons that others, especially whites, can learn from-about how to live and how to be.``

Today a New Englander, Schiel grew up in Chicago. He says his first vague perception of American Indians came from the ``dim awareness`` that a massacre once had taken place at the site of Fort Dearborn. Subsequent family trips through the South Dakota Badlands intensified his curiosity and began to create in him a sympathy for Indian viewpoints.

It was during a 1983 solo photo-camping trip across the Plains, however, including a pilgrimage to Wounded Knee, in South Dakota, that his photographic destiny became manifest. ``At Wounded Knee I felt a relatively clear image,`` Schiel remembers, ``almost as if I could hear the voices of the people

(approximately 250, including women and children) who had been killed.``

Schiel has since returned to Wounded Knee three times. In `90, it was to participate (together with project partner Louise Dunlap) as a support person in ``The Big Foot Memorial Ride,`` commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Wounded Knee Massacre. Several images from this trip are included in the show. Made on horseback, in temperatures dropping to well below zero, the Memorial Ride was a reenactment of historical events and was intended to

``wipe away the tears of Wounded Knee`` and complete the Sacred Hoop (100 years of mourning).

It began on Dec. 15, the date of Sitting Bull`s death at Standing Rock Reservation in northern South Dakota, the place where 43 Indian agency police, sent to arrest the chief, killed him, his son, Crowfoot, and six other followers. Seven agents lost their lives as well.

The ride proceeded south, the almost 300 miles to Wounded Knee, past the place where Big Foot`s camp, which included many American Indians who had fled from Standing Rock following Sitting Bull`s death, began its march to Wounded Knee on Dec. 22, after hearing a rumor that there was a U.S. military plan in place to deport them to an island off the East Coast.

The mounted memorial procession reached Wounded Knee on Dec. 29, the anniversary of the massacre.

Another exhibition segment contains images made on the still-in-progress

``Spiritual Walk,`` a transcontinental pilgrimage from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., organized by Japanese Buddhists and lead by American Indians. The 3,000-mile walk is intended to honor Indian struggles throughout the hemisphere during 1992, the 500th anniversary of Columbus` voyage.

Schiel walked the first 260-mile leg of the trip, from San Francisco to Reno. He says most of the participants joined for only a segment of the walk; however, a core group of about 10 or 12 is completing the entire journey.

Barring any unforeseen setbacks, they are scheduled to reach the national capital this week (in time for Columbus Day), and will then join the

``People`s Fast for Justice and Peace in the Americas: A Penitential Reflection on the 500 Years of the Columbus Enterprise,`` which was begun on Sept. 1, 1992, and will continue through Oct. 12.

According to Schiel, many people don`t realize that more than 50 percent of Indians in the U.S. live off reservations, in big cities. ``How often do you see pictures of Indians in cities, other than lying in gutters?`` he asks rhetorically.

Ironically, the photographer`s own awareness of urban American Indians was solidified while staying at the St. Francis Mission on the Rosebud Reservation, in South Dakota.